The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

CHAPTER III
THE LAUNCHING OF A MAN
Eastern Birth with Western Characteristics—Theodore Roosevelt's Ancestors—Birth—His
Youth— His Family Strict Church People—As a Boy
Was Robust in Spirit but Not in Body—Principal Events of His Life
His Books—Remarkable Versatility and Adaptability—An Interesting
Romance—The Highest Type of an American.
Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United
States, was pronounced by Senator Depew, in his speech at
Philadelphia that nominated Mr. Roosevelt for the vice-presi-
dency, as "an Eastern man with Western characteristics."
This description fits him perfectly.
ANCESTRY OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT
He was born in the East, but he received a training and an
experience in the great rugged open and hustling West,
among its hospitable and communicative people and manly
men that stamps him as a man possessed of sympathies and
trails that are more Western than Eastern. Theodore Roose-
velt's mother was a Southern woman and a reference to his
chronology indicates that he was born about three years
before the great war between the South and North began.
He was descended from Claes Martenzoon Van Rosevelt,
who came from Holland to the then very New World
indeed, in 1649. In addition to Dutch blood, he is blended
with Scotch-Irish and French Huguenot blood through other
ancestors. One writer says of him:
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